llantly:

"You thought I would be a good wife to you. You thought I knew
everything a woman should know who agreed to live together with the man
she loved, and make the most of life. But, Grant, I was and am really
a humbug! I don't know how to manage a house; I have to leave it to
the servants, and I can see enough, at least, to know that it isn't
what it should be. There are a thousand little fancies of yours I
don't know how to gratify, and I want to do it so, Grant! What shall I
do?"

He responded by saying that he was very fond of his little Dora
Copperfield and that he would buy her a poodle dog. He added, though,
that she mustn't die--he needed her!

There was a laugh in his eyes, and he was but the tyrant man enjoying
the discomfort of the one being to him; but when she curled a little
closer and looked up in earnestness, he relented.

"That is nothing, dear," he said, "save that I'm afraid you have a
little work ahead. Yes, it is right that you should know what you do
not. You must learn. It is nothing for a clever woman, such as the
one I have gained. I look to you, love, for the home and all the
sweetness of it, and I wouldn't do that if I did not think that in the
end there would be all pride and comfort for you. Down East they call
this or that woman 'house-proud.' I want you to be 'house-proud.' No
wife who is that but is doing very much for all about her, and I won't
say any more, except that you must let me help you."

And thenceforth ensued strange things. There were experiments, and
there was even a cooking-school episode, Harlson, at this period,
professing great weariness, and sometimes, after meals, simulating
pains which required much attention, though drugs were vigorously
refused. All he wanted was strictly personal care. It is to be feared
that he was not honest as to details, though honest as a whole. And he
would go marketing with the brown woman, who had become so practical,
and they became critical together, and the gourmands, wise old men
about town, whom he brought, occasionally, to dine with him, began to
wonder how it was that they found such perfection at a private table.
And, as for the woman, well, she passed so far beyond her clumsy Mentor
that he became but as the babe which doesn't know, and had nothing to
say in her august presence. He might talk about a cheese or a wine or
some such trifle, but how small a portion of living are cheese and wine!

The first